


Other Suns

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Brothers, Character Study, Gen, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 11:04:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18776983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: Against all odds, Loki has kept at least one promise.





	Other Suns

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!!! I hope you enjoy this, if you read it. It's.... Really self-indulgent, wow. 
> 
> Please, have a wonderful day!!! Ahhh, I'm sorry for any mistakes I might've made here.

-1: Before

“You will never be a god.”

Loki had gagged those words to Thanos, that high-and-mighty fancypants world-balancer, that killer who smiled like he thought he was so much more.  They’d been a bit like spitting in his eye, at the end.  Loki knew Thor could hear him.  His brother, with so much thundering laughter, so much pain.  There would be thousands of years’ worth of unspoken words left between them, but Loki knew “You will never be a god” might be the last thing he had to offer, now.  Listen well, Thor Odinson, Friend of the People, Lightning-Prince.  Listen well, Thanos, you tender fool.

You will never be a god, but my brother and I, we are.  You may swagger around and tell your little stories for a good long while, but the stuff _I’m_ made of?  Those stories are a world in themselves.

What I am will last, even if you drop my corpse so my brother can see my staring eyes and choke on his breath.  Just you wait, you cocky little thing.  Just you wait.

Loki knew his own breath stuttered out, and his feet swung off the ground like a dangling puppet’s — Thanos choking him, see, and very dramatically at that.  Loki’s skin would go icy cold and blue when death came...  Illusion magic slinking back into his bones.  Loki knew.

Loki _didn’t_ know Thor would hold him with shaking hands after all that, though, not really.  Not until later.  Thor had seen Loki’s true Frost Giant face before then, sure, sure, but never for so long, worn so openly.

So this is what you’ve always looked like, Loki.  Underneath it all.  Thor would remember how peaceful Loki’s red-on-red eyes had seemed there for all time.  He would think about how Loki might drawl, “You’re crushing me, you know, brother,” and pat Thor’s hand absently.  Offering a slim cold arm to get himself pulled back up to sitting.  “Won’t you give me a second to catch my breath?”

Ha.

Get it?

Breath?

Thor left his brother with what remained of Asgard, thinking he’d be back very soon.  Maybe Loki’s body would be set in an escape pod and burned.  A ship, of sorts, though with fewer gilded serpents than Loki might have liked.  Maybe there wouldn’t be any escape pods left to spare.

Maybe, by the time any shambling Asgardians went to do something about their trickster prince, their lie-smith, they would find his body disappeared.  Probably not, though.

It probably took Loki a bit longer than _that_ to gather himself back together, right?  For the suspense, and all.

...

0: Between

The world always needs a little mischief in it.  The pantheon without Loki is incomplete, like a beautiful mask carved missing emotion in the twist of its lips, like a movie without goofy bits that make you laugh until you almost can’t breathe.   Murmuring, “Oh that’s awful,” down into a fistful of candy you weren’t supposed to smuggle into the theater, maybe...  See?  Without Loki, there’s never any smuggled candy.

The stories are told again and again.

The gods cannot be gone forever.

What sort of world would _that_ be?

Maybe we don’t have to say how it happened, this time.  Could’ve been another case of ghosts and stolen skins, of course — could’ve meant something like rebirth, or reformation, or stories refusing to let their meanings go.  Could’ve been it took so, so much of Loki’s will to set another self in motion — the notoriety and the stories, the clutching hungers and the quicksilver soul.

Could’ve been the Loki who’d felt an Infinity Stone tapping casually against his boot — and who scooped it up because of course, of course, _of course_ he did — just went on a few adventures and decided to check in on this tragic Thanos-y universe because he was in the neighborhood.  Got up-to-date and thought, hey, by Odin’s beard, I guess I went out pretty heroically, huh?

Could’ve been — or not.  Let’s say it’s the Loki who was lost that came home, this time.  The Loki who felt his insides freeze over as he died, who offered the Tesseract to a monster so Thor could live a while yet, with somewhat less pain.  The Loki who said “You will never be a god,” and “I promise you, brother, the sun will shine on us again.”

Let’s say _that_ Loki scraped his way back to the watery pale Midgard sun, somehow, looking for Thor around New Asgard.  He arrived exhausted, carrying trinkets from some absurd travels through space and with about a dozen more people that either thought he was their new very best friend or wanted to murder him messily.  Long stories.  Different stories.

When Loki finally made it to New Asgard, he was given a bed to flop down in and plenty of food.  He was entertained by that former Valkyrie he remembered from the disbanded “Revengers,” who had — apparently — become Asgard’s ruler, now.   She seemed confident and careful, warm and trusted. She was leading the people well, but —

But —

“Where is Thor then?  Has he been...  Was he lost?”  Loki hated how his voice hitched, asking that.  He glanced under the table where he was sitting, as if Thor might have decided to hide bent there like a joke.  Loki looked at the cold white sky out the window next to their table.  Saw angry grey water and fishing boats; saw ravens so like his sometime-father’s.

No.  Thor was fine as he’s ever been, lately, so far as Valkyrie’d heard.  He survived the battle against Thanos, but only really because Steve Rogers was worthy of that dratted miraculous hammer.  He...  Well.  Thor was different, now, in ways Valkyrie wasn’t sure exactly how to say.  Thor had been changed by so much death.

Let’s say Loki learned how Thor mourned him, mourned everyone, and he was struck almost speechless imagining it.  He gripped the edge of the table and watered down a lot of expletives.  Explanations, accusations.  “He has an addictive personality, my brother.  Has he been sober for a single day this last year?  For a waking hour?”  He wanted to say that bit there, but he didn’t.  “Are you telling me all Thor’s new friends, _his precious Avengers_ , just left him to rattle around on his own for _five years_?”

Loki didn’t say _that_ , either.  It was a little infuriating — a little vindicating — to hear how the Avengers only sought Thor out again when they needed his strength.

Instead, Loki asked, “Where is my brother now?”

And...  Mm.

Thor was in _space_ , wouldn’t you know it.  Thor was off gallivanting with the Guardians of the Galaxy, around about where Loki’d just made it back from.

It really figures, doesn’t it?

Loki and the former Valkyrie — the king, the queen, the champion neither Loki nor his golden brother had turned out to be — laughed about that awkwardly for just a little while before he took his leave.

...

1: Now

Loki _expected_ he’d spot Thor himself, at some point, or stumble across the Guardians’ ship in trouble and be able to swoop in and save the day.  Possibly it would even be something narratively significant!  You never know.  Loki’d actually done his share of daring rescues before, over the centuries. He’d heard so much about the Guardians of the Galaxy making messes and/or money, heading back to Earth.  A band of hooligans, it sounded like.  Sort of fun, but not the manner of scene Odin would have plotted out for any of his children.  Not that Odin had especially disliked Midgardian “1980s” music.  At least not so far as _Loki_ knew.

But actually, it was the little rabbit — raccoon?  Something like that, something almost Midgardian — who Loki found first.  He seemed to know Loki before he even got around to saying anything, which was a pity because Loki had prepared a very touching “Concerned Brother” routine.  They were in some sort of shady gambling den, when it happened.  Loki had just worked his magic over a few tables, using space-napkins and Midgardian sticky notes he’d lifted from the Valkyrie’s queen-ing desk to con the place out of enough money to get him across at least another couple solar systems.

The air was sticky with crackling smoke — those drugs didn’t exactly work on Loki, but they _were_ remarkably good for the lighting.  The floor was all dark glass with something stirring underneath, stretching languid, serpentine coils, hundreds of tiny wet eyes like black seeds blinking along its side.  Scattered hungry stars.  Loki had heard a person could get themselves fed to the beast if anybody caught them cheating, but, well…  He was basically the god of this sort of thing, wasn’t he?  It was madness, but it was the kind of madness he was known for.

Rocket wouldn’t normally have stood out through a crowd like this one, except that Loki had memorized all the Guardians’ “Wanted” posters weeks ago — even some of Thor’s new ones.  His brother had a thick, sometimes crumb-scattered beard, now.  His brother’s face seemed softer, rounded, and Thor looked tired even when he put on a chipper smile for the camera.  So, Loki knew this was a creature called “Rocket” — so Loki might have known him anywhere.  Loki knew Rocket was the one who had offered Thor a ticket off Midgard, after all — offered him new friends, new purpose.  Thor had always thought he needed both those things like some gods needed air.

Again, do you get it?

Air?

In a way, it was gratifying to know Thor would choose a new companion so like Loki, in his way.  Rocket appeared to be sneaking away with something folded up discreetly into his coat, even — Loki could tell in the way he tapped a furry arm over the place where it was hidden, every now and then, and how he held himself so the thing wouldn’t slip.  Loki had enough practice smuggling things around by now, didn’t he?  Really, he ought to know.

Loki excused himself from his latest table, sprinkling lots of pretty words all around and smiling as oily and polite as he knew.  He followed Rocket from a respectable distance until they got nearly back to the Guardians’ ship.  It wouldn’t do to ruin the little creature’s heist.  Talk about starting off on the wrong foot!  Loki made like he was heading out on his own, of course.  Knocked back one final burning drink that left his mouth fizzing and his throat on fire.  Slid off his latest disguise-face only when the Guardians’ ship was in sight and he was about to hiss Rocket’s name.   
  
                Loki’s voice came out strange, calling for Rocket.  Calling for Thor, really — this new Thor, whatever he was like to talk to now.  It was alright.  Thor’s voice would be raw and too, too honest in a little while, himself.  The Guardians of the Galaxy — such a lofty, strutting-around kind of name! — had parked in a junkyard.  Gooey things murmured and trickled down the rust heaps all around.  There were toys and once-precious nothings buried under all this rot.  They reminded Loki a little of memories he’d actively tried to shove away, while he was consumed by his own hurt.

Rocket looked Loki up and down, scowling.  Said, “Thor told me you _really_ died, last time.  Huh.  Ain’t this just a kick in the teeth, you lying to the poor lug all over again?”

“It isn’t like that,” Loki promised.  He thought of Thor’s face, maybe, howling through his painful metal gag as he watched Loki swing limp in Thanos’s hand.  Loki had never expected to see his brother so helpless.  Even _he_ wouldn’t have left Thor like that, at the end of one of his schemes.  Seeing Thor break had never been the point at all, not truly.  Loki should’ve been there to make him laugh, after everything.  Loki should’ve been there to kick Thor’s ass in some of those Midgardian video games.  “Can I...  I’d like to see my brother.  Explain, if I can.  Is he...?”

“He’s around,” Rocket said, cagey, thinking it through.  “Know what — he’s probably still sleeping, you ask me.”

Loki felt the smile tangle his lip, like thread coming into a knot.  “I can make you a deal, if that’s what you need...” he started.  “Is it money you’re after?  Surely you know I just robbed that last place blind.  And if it’s a spell, I was trained by the goddess Frigga herself, wasn’t I?  My mother....  Thor’s mother, too, if you’ve forgotten.”

Loki kept his voice airy and conversational, there, with maybe a _hint_ of venom.  Just a bit, like a glimpse of fang against his lip.

Rocket — this space-faring ne’er-do-well, Thor’s impossible new shipmate — chuckled, then.  “You’re just like he said you’d be,” he snorted.  “His impressions, y’know.  We all thought he had to be exaggerating, but it’s actually kinda spot-on.”

Rocket led Loki into the Guardians’ mostly-sleeping ship, then, full of flickering screens and the smell of musty old space-takeout.  He waved vaguely at someone Loki knew was called “Mantis,” who was watching some sort of holographic TV program with her knees folded up under her chin in the dark.  She pointed at Loki, grinning wide, and said “You!  You are so nervous...  Aw.  Don’t be nervous!”

It was almost definitely meant to be sweet, wasn’t it?  Loki assured the empath he wasn’t nervous, and even though the lie sounded natural enough — more natural than any truth from him would have, honestly — of course no one believed him.  Rocket snickered some more and shook his furry head.  Stalked further into the ship.  Loki’s eyes flicked all around like restless birds, taking in mysterious stains he stepped over sort of gingerly and decorations on the walls.  Memories he couldn’t have been a part of.  Stories maybe Thor would tell him, if they could be anything like they’d been, once, now that everything they were was so changed.

Rocket pointed down a dark hall and whispered, “Quill’s room.  Don’t go that way — it’s gross.  Not that your brother’s much better at cleaning up after himself, mind you, but at least he respects Nebula’s chore wheel.”

“That...  Sounds like Thor,” Loki said, softly.  He wondered if Rocket could read regret and weary-deep anger in his voice.  He wondered if Thor would wake up still drunk, like the former Valkyrie had said he might, and what color his new prosthetic eye was.  He wondered if Thor felt cramped, shuffling his way through this rickety ship.  Decided probably he must.  Thor had always been tall, and he’d only gotten broader...  Asgard the way they used to know it would have held him comfortably, were it not for their father’s expectations.  Questions of worthiness and value; efforts to matter through violence, through kinghood.  Yes, were it not for any of that.

Loki could see it all more clearly now, he thought, with much of the anger drained away.

The pantheon is incomplete without Thor, too, you know.  The one with open trusting smiles, the one who can shatter apart the sky.  Friend to the people, to anyone, in a way few others know how to be.  Without cheerful camaraderie, isn’t the world like a too-quiet mead hall?  Without loyalty, isn’t the world like a necklace that can’t hold itself together, clattering polished stones down at your feet?

Rocket let himself into Thor’s room first, holding up a long claw.  Hissing, “Wait here.  I’ll wake him up.”

Loki _waited here_ , sure, but not for long.

There were crashes beyond the door to Thor’s room, soon enough, and a yelp of pain...  Loki found out later that Thor had stumbled out of bed and slammed his head on a shelf where he stored some of his things, like his prosthetic eye when he wasn’t using it and a relentless Midgardian clock one of his Avengers friends had given him that always showed the time in New York City.

“Yeah, I’m sure it’s him,” Rocket drawled.  “Frost Giant heat signature and everything.  ‘Course I checked!”

Thor must have asked a question, then.  That was strange. His voice wasn’t usually so, so quiet.

When Thor tossed open the door, his hair was tangled and he smelled like sour beer — his clothes fit strangely, as though they belonged to someone else.  He was so warm, throwing his arms around Loki.  He hunched over to lean against Loki’s shoulder for a second — huge and soft, with his eyes squeezed shut, swaying just a little on his feet.  Drunk, maybe.  But he’d just woken up, too, let’s be fair.  Thor was wordless for a long second, and Loki patted his back, trying to think of an appropriate quip.

He didn’t, though.  Not before Thor cleared his throat all messily and leaned back...  Still holding Loki’s shoulders tight, as if they might flicker out between his fingers.  Thor’s good eye was red and glossy.  Far, far away.  Maybe today he would feel well enough to braid his beard.

“This planet’s suns will rise soon,” Thor said.  It was so clear he was trying not to slur his words.  Holding Loki’s gaze. “Brother.  I didn’t think you could keep your promise.”

“There you are, then,” Loki said.  He straightened the collar of Thor’s shirt, shifting beneath the weight of his hands.  Ah – maybe that was a _little_ better?  “I’m full of surprises.  There’s at least one promise kept.”


End file.
